The lawn care industry typically utilizes vehicles, such as pick-up trucks, to transport lawn care fluids, i.e. specially formulated fertilizers and herbicides, to a lawn which is to be sprayed with one or more of the fluids. Each vehicle is generally equipped with a tank for holding each lawn care fluid and means for dispensing the liquid from each tank for applying the lawn care fluids to lawns. Current systems typically use gas engine driven pumps for pumping the lawn care fluids. However, these gas engine driven pumps are noisy and create a relatively large amount of pollution, which is a particular problem in residential neighborhoods in which lawn care vehicles often operate. In addition, gas engine driven pumps create gasoline handling and hauling hazards, in addition to reliability and lifetime hazards. Some larger trucks use PTO drives to power the pumps, however PTO drives have associated complex valving and fluid sealing problems.
Further, on most lawn care vehicles, the tank(s) and associated lawn care fluid components are intended to be permanently mounted on the truck, thereby limiting use of the truck and/or making detachment of the tank(s) and other components difficult. Often times, in many lawn care vehicles, the tanks and other components are simply mounted in any convenient location on the vehicle, with little consideration given to the effects on the appearance and aerodynamics of the vehicle.
What is needed is a lawn care system for applying lawn care fluids which eliminates the use of gas powered pumps and PTO drives, and which is designed to be easily mounted on and removed from a vehicle, thereby allowing the vehicle to be used for other purposes.